An 11-year-old Arizona girl thwarted a possible kidnapping last week after she demanded a stranger who told her to get into a white SUV to give her a “code word.”

The unidentified girl and a friend were walking near a park in North Pecan Creek just before 4 p.m. Wednesday when a man driving a white SUV, described as a Ford Explorer-like vehicle, pulled up next to them, Pinal County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

The man claimed the girl’s brothers were in a serious accident and told the girl she had to come with him, police said. The girl asked the stranger for a “code word” — but the man didn’t know the answer and fled the scene.

“We came up with a code word, and this one time, it saved my daughter’s life,” the girl’s mother, Brenda James, told FOX10 Phoenix. “She told me that a guy tried to take her.”